5 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About the Back to the Future Trilogy

It’s October 21, 2015, and you know what that means! It’s the date that Marty and Dr. Brown travel into the future. As our way of paying homage to the date, we give you 5 things that you probably didn’t know about the films. So turn on your time circuits, make sure the flux capacitor is fluxing and engine is running, as we go for a ride for the 5 things you probably don’t know about the Back to the Future trilogy.

1. THIS TRILOGY WILL BE THE ONLY ONE FOR BACK TO THE FUTURE

In this day and age remakes, reboots, and re-imagination of the original movies are a dime a dozen. Rarely will you see a successful franchise not getting a reboot or a continuation. Enter Back to the Future (BTTF for brevity). It was revealed by the creator Robert Zemeckis in an interview that there will be no more BTTF movies in the future, or as long as he lives. Why? Well he traveled in the future and found out that Hollywood would be making a phenomena out of rebooting old movies. Kidding! Zemeckis, together with Bob Gale, made a contract with Universal and Amblin Entertainment in 1984 giving the creators the final say on any thing related to BTTF.

Zemeckis even went on record that as long as he lives there will be no remake or sequel or whatsoever regarding BTTF. AND, he wishes that this contract would make its way to his estate. I truly commend Zemeckis and Gale for this, because really, why destroy a classic that is BTTF with a reboot or sequel?

2. THE DELOREAN WAS NOT THE ORIGINAL TIME MACHINE

When you think about BTTF you will always correlate it to the time machine that is the Delorean. It’s just that iconic. But did you know that the original time machine was designed to be a refrigerator? I kid you not! This was in fact in the original script of Zemeckis. The script stated that the refrigerator would be the device that Marty climbs into, and with the help of an atomic explosion would propel Marty to another time line.

As you all know, this idea was ultimately scrapped by Zemeckis. His reason? He believed that children might imitate the scene and end up hurting themselves, or much worse, killing themselves in the process. Way to go for Robert Zemeckis for doing the responsible thing!

3. MICHAEL J. FOX ALMOST DIED SHOOTING BTTF 3

If you remember that scene where Marty was being dragged by Tannen throughout Hill Valley and ended up getting hanged? Well if you could remember, that was one of the more tense scenes in the movie. But what you probably don’t know is that Michael J. Fox almost died in that scene.

The story goes like this, the directors originally setup a box for Fox to stand on, but decided to remove it for some realistic effect. So on the 7th take, with Fox already tired, Fox unfortunately didn’t get the right technique. Which in turn ended up with him being unconscious for a good 30 seconds. 30 SECONDS people! It actually took the crew some time to realize that this wasn’t acting at all. Luckily Fox survived. Phew!

4. CRISPIN GLOVER WAS ONLY IN THE FIRST BTTF

You might say I’m kidding because you definitely saw him in BTTF 2 and 3, right? Or did you? Truth is, Crispin Glover, the guy who plays Marty’s father, was really only in the first movie. After the first movie he apparently quit due to the subtle message the movie was conveying. Well that was according to him. Apparently, his thoughts on the ending was that the McFly’s were happy because they were rich, or something like that.

So what did the creators/directors do? They used prosthetic as a remedy. So it may appear that Crispin Glover was there, but not really there. Unfortunately, Glover sued, and won the case as he never gave permission to use his likeness.

5. THE MOVIE REFERENCES THE CHANGES THROUGHOUT HISTORY

Time travel movies, shows, or stories are generally tricky to navigate. A lot could go wrong when things don’t line up. BTTF on the other hand navigated this properly, well for the most part at least.

If you remember that scene where Marty first arrives for Dr. Brown’s experiment in the first movie? You’d see that the name of the mall is “Twin Pines Mall”, then when Marty travels back in time, he runs over a shrub, which causes a rift, causing the name of the mall to change in the future as “Lone Pines Mall”, which you could see once Marty arrives back to the future.

Another one is the Clayton Ravine in BTTF 3. Early on it was referenced by Marty as the Clayton Ravine. Since they rescued Clara Clayton, to which the ravine is named after, that place in history never took place, but instead was named after Clint Eastwood (Marty’s persona) after falling off the train tracks.

So there you have it, some of the fun trivia about Back to the Future that you probably didn’t know.

Now lets all wait for Marty McFly to arrive!

Gino is the Gladiators’ resident TV and comic book reviewer. He is a lawyer in the making at day and full-on geek by night. He believes that the lightsaber is the best weapon during a zombie apocalypse. #AgeOfTheGeek